Terry Myerson, head of Microsoft's operating systems unit, asked HTC last month to load Windows Phone as a second option on handsets with Google's rival software, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the talks are private. Myerson discussed cutting or eliminating the license fee to make the idea more attractive, the people said. The talks are preliminary and no decision has been made, two people said.

I hope HTC and every other Android OEM flips Microsoft the bird. The shoe's on the other foot now, Redmond.

Can you explain how SQLServer is not dependent upon Windows? What Non Windows platforms does it run on?

I didn't say that it runs on other platforms, just that the income Microsoft makes on it is significant.

MS are not making friends in the server space with all their recent 20%+ price rises.
I costed a Windows Server + SQLServer system against a DB2/Linux one.

The SQLServer one was 46% more expensive and that was before the price rises.

I don't know about pricing for SQLServer, and there are other options out there, but SQLServer is still the fastest benchmarked database on the planet. IBM has not exactly been tearing up the server space lately either. If your worried about cost and you want to run on Linux why not just run MySQL?